OTTAWA — A majority of Canadians say their country bends too much in trying to make visible minorities feel at home, even as voters pat themselves on the back for being a welcoming society.

Results of a new survey for The Globe and Mail/CTV News also show substantial national fault lines on immigration, with urban Canadians more likely to support the growth of visible minority groups than their rural cousins are.

If we take into account the fact that Canada's major urban centres are where the vast majority of immigrants and visible minorities reside then these figures make sense. For instance half the population of the city of Toronto are immigrants, a figure that is compounded if we include their Canadian born children. Also, almost half the population of the city of Toronto (around 47% I believe) are visible minorities, soon to form the majority in the not too distant future. It should be of no wonder, then, that Toronto would be the most "welcoming" to immigrants and champion the growth of the visible minority population.

Therefore the consensus of the "rural" component, I argue, is a more accurate gauge of the true sentiments of Canadians and I feel the majority of Canadians are opposed to the ethnic and cultural transformation of their country into something alien and foreign via mass immigration and state sanctioned multiculturalism. This is rarely given any consideration in the news media because many of the journalists, who have saddled themselves with a type of "white man's burden" to educate us of the unenlightened and childlike masses, live and work in Toronto, and other urban centres, and prescribe the social renegenieering that is going on in that city to the rest of the country not because it is the right thing to do but simple because they happen to want it that way. It's the view of the minority masquerading as the vox populi.

According to the poll, 61 per cent of those surveyed believe that Canada makes too many accommodations for visible minorities. In Quebec, 72 per cent of those surveyed feel that way.

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The poll also found that 45 per cent of those surveyed believe new Canadians hold on to their customs and traditions for too long, only two percentage points below those who feel newcomers integrate into Canadian life at a natural and acceptable pace.

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For example, on the matter of whether accepting new immigrants of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds is an enriching part of the Canadian identity, 65 per cent living in cities of more than one million agreed, compared with 53 per cent of Canadians in communities of fewer than 30,000.

Such a question is irrelevant given the greater issues at stake regarding mass immigration and is included to force a positive spin on an otherwise negative situation. Of course people are going to reply positively but doing so doesn't mean we should continue on the current path Canada's immigration policy is following. Sure, one may find it enriching but is it still a good thing when the ethnic and cultural make up of Canada is altered in an unrecognizable fashion? Does the host majority feel comfortable being rendered a minority in their own country? Is it still enriching when wages are stagnated and good jobs are made harder to get because of mass immigration?

When asked to characterize the fact that five million Canadians are visible minorities, 55 per cent of Liberal supporters said it was a positive development, compared with 38 per cent of Conservative backers.

By contrast, 53 per cent of NDP backers, 56 per cent of Bloc Québécois backers and 59 per cent of Greens found the numbers a good thing.

Even though such news was received with great fan fare in the news media it has never been explained why this is a good thing. And so I am going to ask the question. Why is the growth of the visible minority population in Canada a good thing?

I am surprised to find the numbers as low as they are. I would assume at least 60% of Liberal supporters would receive such news as a positive development. I also suspect that many of the respondents answered in the way they feel they were expected to respond and not how they sincerely felt.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

"At the same time, 88 per cent of Canadians believe that their community is welcoming to members of visible minority groups."

By whom are they referring to as "Canadians"? Did the pollsters ask all these respondents for their current citizenship status or where their place of birth was? Even if some respondents hold Canadian passports, can they be considered real Canadians? I doubt it, so let's not give too much credence to the "Canadian" portion of this skewed poll.

Further, how do they define the word "community"? That description could also be taken a couple of ways. Is that "community" located out in the eastern Maritimes or on the Prairies where a Vis-Mins would be almost negligible? Or could it mean the black community, the Sikh community, the Chinese community or any other racially-designated community, all with the exception of "The Horse With No Name" community.....that's the White community if some of your readers are puzzled.

How many real Canadians who took this poll, actually live in or near one of these racially-defined communities and, if so, would be more welcoming to even more members of that visible-minority grouping?

Here's a quote lifted from Immigration Watch Canada.

“The need to associate with others like ourselves is an immutable feature of human nature and so ethnic identity refuses to die. It is interesting that despite so much multicultural propaganda, a British poll found that 31% of the population still confessed to being racially prejudiced, while another study showed that most Britons harboured feelings of suspicion toward outsiders.”

To sum up, I don't have too much faith in this polling question... nor the results.

I know I sure as heck don't want to become a minority in my own country. And yeah, I live in a small, rural prairie community - by choice. Is it wrong for white Canadians (and my SO is Native) to want to associate with our own, too? Its' nto that there are NO vis-mins here, but they're not overwhelming, and more assimilated. I feel more comfortable here than in the cities, which have become ethnic battlegrounds.

And has anyone noticed the upswing in both crime and accidents lately?